What do you think of Predators and Editors website?

Do you think it's good? I've been looking it over for awhile now. It doesn't tell me everything I want to know--only a really good clairvoyant could tell me that, I suppose--but what do you guys think about it? If you haven't seen it please take a gander. thanks

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I've had some direct experiences with P&E that make me reluctant to take them completely on face value. They only list on scams, for example, if someone reports them. I once asked about a ranking of 'not recommended' on a publisher and they said they felt that the initial contract request for movie rights was too high (50%). The thing was, I knew an author with another publisher, recognized by MWA (at the time, anyway) who took 100% of movie rights from their authors, and they were recommended. That didn't make much sense to me, but they offered no explanation.

I do find that on some of the sites there's a tendency to view negative first, even without facts. And there may be cultural variables that come into play that make advice not always accurate. Miss Snark once made a comment about the fact that no legit publisher allowed for submission of an entire manuscript unsolicited. I pointed out a number of Canadian publishers that do and have those guidelines on their website, and Miss Snark was good enough to say she hadn't known that. Not all of the sites that provide warnings do acknowledge when they're wrong.

My advice is, whenever possible, if you're considering a publisher or agent that is not listed in the Writer's Market, to try to contact an author who is represented by them or with them.

P&E is a great place for authors to check out agents/publishers. Read the bad stuff. But Sandra is right about taking EVERYthing at face value. My publisher was attacked on P&E, and while most of the comments were factually right--the contract is substandard in several areas--some of the attacks were viscious, personal, and presented with a great misunderstanding of how many big house treat authors as well. There was nothing on P&E I hadn't learned myself by reading the contract. Moreover, when I tried to answer in defense of my decision to sign the contract, my comments were immediately deleted. I never understood that.

Yes, the reason P&E put a 'not recommended' on the pub. of SC was the reason I cited above. (And come on, what publisher doesn't try to get as much as they can first time out with initial offer contract? It's the offer you negotiate from, not to.) In fact, I'm curious to know how they're treating Simon & Schuster these days, after all the brouhaha about their contract changes... (And like any of us would brush off a contract with S&S lightly.)

While I'd say now I wouldn't recommend the pub. I was referring to, it's for the kind of reasons you can't find on a contract. There's a lot more than that to assessing a publisher.

And any site that deletes comments contrary to the opinion they uphold is suspect. If they stand by their conclusion they should have nothing to fear from differing opinions.

sounds good to me. I'll go that way. thanks so much jack. by the way, you did get fed up every now and then when you were writing, right?
i had a string of great days writing (the past week), and today i feel like my head is down to my knees even though i wrote two chapters and worked on notes!

Absolutely - and same with publishers who charge fees to be published. The real scammers play off your desire to be published and how good it feels to have an offer. My first contract offer (from a UK publisher) was all perfect, perfect, perfect until I saw the contract - 10,000 pounds to be published and they had the right to all your future works at the same contract terms. When I raised the fact that wasn't what they'd told me in emails they kept saying things like, "These are good questions. If you have more just forward them on." But they never addressed the issues. Those are big warning signs.

I think P&E is probably the single most valuable agent tool out there for aspiring writers. That said, I wouldn't use it as the basis for choosing an agent or publisher. I see it more as a tool for NOT choosing an agent or editor.

I queried 118 agents for my first novel. The last thing I did before I sent 117 of those queries was to verifty the legitimacy of that particular agent with P&E. The one I didn't check? Turned out to be a scammer who requested my book within 48 hours. (The fast response time was my first clue that something was amiss.)

P&E isn't perfect but if I could tell an aspiring author about only one resource for getting published, it would probably be that one. But, as others have said, it's best to use a variety of resources when it comes to researching agents, etc.